Twitter Updates

January 2012

23/01/2012

This recipe came about through luck and experimentation. I had followed a recipe for confit duck legs that were flavoursome, succulent, and fell off the bone. It got me thinking that rather than slow roasting pork shoulder for use as pulled pork or taco meat, I could maybe try to confit it . I found a joint of what I thought was pork shoulder at the back of the freezer and thought it would be a great candidate for the test.

18/01/2012

A few months ago I got talking online with the people at El Yucateco foods, whose ingredients I use in a lot of my Mexican recipes. Actually, to be honest, I find that a splash of El Yucateco Chipotle Sauce gives a wonderful deep flavour note to lots of recipes, not just Mexican.

When I mentioned how difficult it can be to get hold of specialist Mexican ingredients in the UK, El Yucateco asked me if I'd like some samples that I could use in recipes on the Shizzling blog - a perfect barter, as far as I'm concerned.

Today the first of those samples arrived in the form of two boxes - one full of achiote and the other full of their Kutbil-Ik De Exxxtra Hot Habanero Sauce.

I'm looking forward to cooking with these ingredients - I think there's probably more than a year's supply!

Back in July 2011 I pickled some Serenade Chillies that I had picked from a plant in my garden. I used a cider vinegar & salt mix as the pickling liquid.

The idea was to find out whether I could produce pickled chillies that are comparable in quality to the pickled jalapenos that are sold by Discovery Foods, Old El Paso and others. I was also interested in determining the shelf life of the pickled chillies and whether they lost any colour, flavour or texture over time.

So, here are the fresh Serenade chillies, before I washed them and cut slits in them to allow the pickling liquid to penetrate.

And here they are immediately after I pickled them:

They looked very vibrant and fresh immediately after pickling. Then, over the course of the first couple of weeks that vibrancy diminished. After a month I opened the jar and tried one - it had a crispness to it that you don't get with the shop bought pickled chillies.

Then I sealed the jar back up and stuck it in the fridge to see how long they would keep.

I just took one out today, after they have been in the jar for 6 months, and sliced it up to do a taste test.

The colour, taste and texture are all stable compared to how they were when I did my first taste test.

This makes me confident that I can pickle a load of jalapenos and serrano chillies in the same way this year.